Great CGI-Fun.

Rating: 6/10 (10 August 2013)

While lacking of a truly captivating story, Pacific Rim is a grandiose and impressive battle flick about giant robots fighting giant sea monsters in the style of Japanese Anime series that thankfully gets along (almost) without any pathos and exaggerated patriotism as it is often the case in Hollywood disaster movies of this sort (i.e. "Independence Day" or "Armageddon"); since it never takes itself too seriously and yet refrains from being ridiculous or silly.
This movie is especially made for the theaters, an experience of epic proportions that certainly must blow up the frame of your common flat screen TV at home. Therefore I highly recommend to see it at the cinema in 3D as long as it's still possible. The robots (Jaeger) are so big and heavy that, while walking, I had the impression that the floor, beneath my feet, was trembling with every step they made which of course came from the powerful stereo sound. The monsters (Kaiju) are simply huge and terrifying, you cannot tell where their bodies actually start like endless mountains of flesh. These two gigantic forces colliding with each other subsequently leads to (slightly overlong) battle scenes that are to be described as state-of the-art in terms of CGI effects and destructive frenzy being dirty, brute and swept with rain and pacific water; in its magnitude only surpassed by "Transformers" and "The Avengers" - a real "Materialschlacht" as we would say in Germany.
With such a premise it's not surprising that the actual actors are more or less pushed into the background. Idris Elba has great charisma in front of the camera, but his role as the commanding officer is noticeably not very challenging due to a lack of diversity in character development which is maybe why he appears a bit stiff in his uniform. The same goes for the other actors who all appear somewhat pale with Charlie Day as a refreshing exception in his role as Dr. Newt adding much to the humor of the movie.
The script itself seemingly paying homage to the Asian monster movies nevertheless missing their susceptibility to intransigence and craziness instead orientates itself too much on the usual Hollywood Blockbuster ingredients for success leaving you with the aftertaste that you have seen it all before one way or another (i.e. "Cloverfield", "Godzilla") thus being rather predictable.
Guillermo Del Toro surely did better movies, however, with "Pacific Rim" he proved that he is able to maintain a certain standard which perfectly met my expectations albeit not surpassing them so that I cannot but give it a good 6 points out of ten.